Religious Groups’ Attitudes toward Jews in the Netherlands

NIDI M&M Team Meeting

24 Oct 2025

Introduction

  • Antisemitism, including verbal hostility, social exclusion, and physical violence, threatens Jewish communities and social cohesion (Cohen, 2025; Enstad, 2025)
  • Religion plays an important role in explaining antisemitic attitudes (Barna & Kovács, 2019; Öztürk & Pickel, 2021)
  • Both Christianity (Pew, 2018) and Islam (Litvak, 2023) have long historical tensions toward Jews, but there are also secular roots of antisemitism (Heschel 2011)
  • Aim: Examine attitudes toward Jews among religious groups in the Netherlands
    • Historically strong but declining Protestantism
    • Sizeable Muslim minorities (Morocco, Turkey) and other migrant groups (e.g., Suriname, Poland)

Explaining Attitudes toward Jews

  • Jews are a very small, dispersed, mostly invisible minority in public life; hostility thus grounded in ingroup norms, not in outgroup threat (Verkuyten & Thijs, 2010)
  • Antisemitism is a conspiratorial worldview rooted in myths (“the rumor about the Jews”; Adorno, 1954); negative attitudes toward Jews are a key component of antisemitism
  • Antisemitic norms can persist in some Christian (Munson, 2018; Pargament et al., 2007) and Muslim communities (Nyhan & Zeitzoff, 2018; Weinberg, 2020)

Religiosity and Attitudes toward Jews

  • Christian anti-Judaism has historically shaped antisemitic views in Europe, e.g. belief that Jews are responsible for Christ’s death (Pargament et al., 2007)
  • Large-scale anti-Jewish pogroms historically less frequent in Muslim societies than in Christian Europe
  • Still, Jews were subordinated as Dhimmis, and 20th-century Nazi propaganda circulated widely in the Arab world and imported European-style antisemitic tropes (Herf, 2014; Küntzel, 2005)
  • Israeli-Palestinian conflict often viewed as symbol of Western dominance among many Muslims (Zhirkov et al., 2014), projected on Jews as a collective (Jacobs et al., 2011)
  • Expectation: Attitudes toward Jews most positive among non-religious respondents, less positive among Christians, and least among Muslims

The Role of Religion

  • If religion drives attitudes toward Jews, variation should depend on how central religion is within groups
  • E.g.: Fundamentalist interpretations foster antisemitic beliefs across religions (Fischer & Wetzels, 2024; Öztürk & Pickel, 2021)
  • Expectation: Higher importance of religiosity is associated with more negative attitudes

The Role of Education

  • Education generally predicts tolerance toward outgroups (Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2007; Velásquez, 2024)
  • In Western contexts, higher education has also shown to lower antisemitism (Hinz et al., 2024; 2025; Nyhan et al., 2024)
  • Expectation: Higher education of religiosity is associated with more positive attitudes

The Role of Migration

  • Acculturation theories suggest that migrants’ attitudes adjust toward majority norms (Alba & Nee, 1997; White et al., 2008)
  • If true, time in host country and generation status should lead to a convergence toward natives (Velásquez, 2024; Becker, 2019)
  • Expectation: More time in the Netherlands and later generations show more positive attitudes among migrants

Data and Variables

  • Survey Integratie Minderheden 2015
  • Outcome: Feelings thermometer toward Jews from 0 (very cold/negative) to 100 (very warm/positive)
  • Religious denomination: 31.8% none, 37.1% Christian, 17.8% Muslim, (16.9% Hindu)
  • Origin: 13.9% Moroccan, 14.6% Turkish, 16.9% Surinamese, 17.8% Antillean/Aruban, 19% Polish, 17.8% native Dutch
  • Migrant generation: 57.5% first, 24.6% second generation, 17.8% native Dutch
  • Religious Importance: Sum index of four items (e. g.: “My faith is an important part of me”); Non-believers set to 0
  • Controls: age, gender, education, ingroup evaluation (baseline rating tendencies)

Results

Average Attitude toward Jews by Religion

Average Attitude toward Jews by Religious Subgroup

Regression Model

Interaction: Religion and Religious Importance

Interaction: Religion and Education

Interaction: Religion and Generational Status

Interaction: Religion and Years since Migration

Summing up

Conclusion

  • Significant differences in attitudes across, but also within religious groups
  • Attitudes depend on:
    1. Negative effect of the importance of religion (for Muslims)
    2. Positive effect of higher education (for all, strongest for Muslims)
    3. Migration generation (for Christians and non-religious)
    4. Years since migration (for Christians)
  • Next steps: Further examine heterogeneity within religious groups
  • More on the Dutch context?

Annex: Interactions by Religious Subgroups

Interaction: Religion and Religious Importance

Interaction: Religion and Education

Interaction: Religion and Generational Status

Interaction: Religion and Years since Migration (Migrants Only)